The Malfeasance Occasional

by Various Authors

  Scarred and stained wooden table. Leather restraints. Chains. Handcuffs. Knives. Surgical instruments. At the base of the open woodstove, charred bones.

  I stood there for what seemed to be forever.

  And a voice from four decades ago, ringing in my ears: “You’re from away? Really? Then no one’s gonna miss you, will they…”

  * * *

  Twelve hours later, I was back at the address again, though this time, I had a hard time finding a parking spot. Before me were police cruisers, pickup trucks with flashing red lights in their grills, and pumper trucks from the Mullen Volunteer Fire Department, as well as from two other local towns.

  I stepped over the rigid fire hoses and puddles, and looked up at the smoking rubble. It didn’t look like a house anymore. Just a heap of charred wood, shingles, and billowing clouds of smoke. My real estate agent found me and started talking. About how the fire had been going on for a while before anyone saw it. How strange it burned down just after we had visited it. And that her brother-in-law thought the old electrical wiring might have shorted out due to the lights we had switched on and off. And … and …

  I looked at Clara and smiled. “Act of God. Don’t worry about it, Clara. I won’t back out on the deal. We negotiated in good faith. Something like this just happens, right?”

  Clara nodded, looking suddenly relieved. She wiped at her brow and said, “What are you going to do now? Rebuild?”

  Oh, how happy I was, looking at the rubble, the flames shooting up, thinking of how purifying fire can be when it’s used right. I looked across the street, to where a group of the neighborhood kids had gathered. I said, “Your brother-in-law. Does he know landscaping?”

  “Some,” Clara said.

  “How does a park sound, for the local kids? Get the debris razed, put in a playground or something. Someplace fun.”

  I unzipped my purse, took out my lighter and cigarettes. “And safe. Whatever’s built here, has to be safe.”

  Clara nodded. “I understand. Oh, Holly, I’m so sorry…” She looked over at the fire crews, wetting down the charred timbers. “Do you think they’ll ever find the cause?”

  I took out my lighter, flicked it open and saw the tiny flame shoot up. “I doubt it.”

  Then I lit my cigarette, and for the first time in a long time, let it fall to the ground, unsmoked.

  BRENDAN DUBOIS of Exeter, New Hampshire, is the award-winning author of nearly 130 short stories and sixteen novels including his latest, “Deadly Cove,” part of the Lewis Cole mystery series. His short fiction has appeared in Playboy, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and numerous anthologies including The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, published in 2000 by Houghton-Mifflin, as well as the The Best American Noir of the Century, published in 2010. His stories have twice won him the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and have also earned him three Edgar Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. He is also a one-time “Jeopardy!” gameshow champion. Visit his website at www.BrendanDuBois.com.

  Girl of Great Price

  by Milo James Fowler

  It was a wet, awful night in the city, but the thundering rain against my windowpane had some serious competition in the tears streaming down the woman’s face before me.

  “Why would they take her?” She begged for an answer, like there was one hanging in midair I could pluck down to satisfy her. “She’s just an innocent little girl!”

  Her husband, a burly retired jarhead who’d served two tours and kept the bad haircut, put his arm around her, seated beside him.

  “Will you help us, Mr. Madison?” His eyes were intense, as clean and blue as the sky our city hadn’t seen in weeks. The acid rains had a way of making our natives restless, wearing them down along with the pocked buildings and curbs along every street. But this guy had spirit. He had hope.

  I leaned back in my leather desk chair until it squeaked. The streetlight outside pierced the slats of my Venetian blinds, painting the earnest couple in horizontal streaks of amber that gleamed against the string of pearls around the woman’s throat.

  “No contact from her abductors?” Only the real deal shone like that; these pearls were genuine, and they hadn’t come cheap. “No ransom demands?”

  The man scowled. “Nothing.”

  His crew cut brought to mind an unwelcome flash of memory I’d be willing to trade my left kidney to lose: the front lines of old Mother Russia where my gunner squad had unexpectedly come upon a platoon of Eastern Conglomerate mandroids, two of my foot soldiers instantly decapitated by the sweep of a massive bayonet, their heads—both sporting the same close-cropped haircut—landing at my feet. In some of my worst nightmares, they roll to stare up at me and gasp, Why, Sarge? I still wonder what it was all for. The current cold war was nothing more than a stalemate between the EC and United World, each side expecting its own people to pay the damages for all those fruitless years of carnage.

  I cleared my throat. It’s one thing to be a haunted man; it’s something else if you allow it to interfere with your work. “And you haven’t gone to the police.” Just one of my perfunctory queries.

  “We—“ The woman glanced at her husband. “We were afraid they might do something to her.” She hadn’t left the verge of tears.

  “Can you remember anything about the thugs who took her?”

  The man blew out a sigh. “It all happened so fast. One second, she was right there beside us, and the next thing we knew, that delivery truck pulled up to the curb and—”

  “Snatched her away.” I nodded. It was all too common in the city these days. Ransoms paid rent, after all. “You wouldn’t happen to have a photo?”

  The woman blinked at me. “Of course.” She started fishing through her purse, a big one made from genuine leather—not that synthetic nubuck crap. The lack of light didn’t help in the search, but I wasn’t about to flip the switch. I had to keep the electric bills low.

  “I can start nosing around.” I stood and fixed the man with a direct look. If he’d been able to afford those pearls and her the purse, my retainer and rates would be chump change. “Two hundred up front and a hundred a day from here on out, plus expenses.”

  He reached into his fine pressed suit. “You come highly recommended, Mr. Madison.”

  I smirked. Even the best man on the job can only go as far as his contacts will allow. I had a few who knew better than to hang me out to dry. They owed me. “You haven’t given me a whole lot to go on.” I took the bills he counted into my hand—just the two hundred to start.

  “Perhaps this will help.” The woman handed me a black-and-white photo of a small Asian girl grinning up into the camera. It was retro-chic in some circles to avoid lifelike color. I was never one for fads.

  “Maybe.” I gave them each a cursory once-over. Happily married couple, by the looks of them—cozy with each other. Nice to have someone by your side through thick and thin, the good times worth the bad. Love and me, we’d never hit it off. “But I doubt she’s related to you.”

  For the first time since their arrival, the jarhead looked uncomfortable in his own skin. Glancing at his wife, he cleared his throat. “My second tour against the Eastern Conglomerate, I … uh … suffered a lapse in judgment, I’m afraid. The girl’s mother, she … died in a Nagasaki firestorm. When my unit … when we pulled out…” His own flashes of memory seemed to fluster him.

  “He couldn’t very well leave her there, Mr. Madison. So he brought her back with him, stateside. She was only two years old at the time, but I welcomed her into our home with open arms.” She demonstrated the gesture with tears shining in her eyes. “She may not be my blood, but she’s my daughter, and I want her back!”

  I had more than enough reason to turn down this case; nothing about it seemed totally on the level. But I had their money in my pocket, and boy did I need it. Rent was due on this office in a big way—two mont
hs past. My reputation was solid enough, but Ivan the Terrible had tightened his grip as of late, and folks were afraid to cross the Russian crime boss by seeking my kind of help. Going to the cops had been out of the question for years; too many of them had their own idea of law and order, and justice seldom entered the equation. But now, even private investigators were experiencing the backlash: folks were willing to live with the status quo, such as it was.

  But not these two. They’d lost a daughter, and by all appearances, they were willing to risk Ivan’s wrath to get her back. Even though most Anglo women, from my experience, would show an Asian girl in their household no more love than they would a scullery maid. Ignorance ran deep in some folks, and it didn’t matter to them that the Japanese had been on our side during the war.

  “You’ll hear from me.” I extended my arm toward the frosted glass of the office door where slats of light shone across the backwards lettering: CHARLIE MADISON, DETECTIVE.

  “Thank you, Mr. Madison.” The jarhead nodded, rising. “If anyone can find her—”

  “No promises.” I had to make that clear up front. “But I’ll do what I can.”

  Mrs. Jarhead bobbed like a pigeon, those pearls of hers like stars puncturing the dead of night. “We’ll pray that you find her soon. We need her back!”

  She left as weepy as she’d arrived, and as my office door swung shut behind them, the rain slashed at my window and bubbled with its own share of grief. I fingered the photograph, turning it over to read the black lettering all in caps: MAO.

  My first stop would be Mr. Newspaper after locking up my empty office. I’d finally had to let Wanda—my secretary—go the week prior, due to begrudging budgetary cuts, and the place seemed so dead now without her. It wasn’t just her contagious laugh or feverish pounding on the Underwood, or those shapely legs that wouldn’t quit. What I missed was the life she brought into this place. Without her, it was just a drab, overpriced office space for me and my internal monologue.

  Mr. and Mrs. Jarhead would have to be my sole benefactors as long as I could string them along. Not that I didn’t plan on finding their kid. I’ve always had a thing against child abusers—I’d sooner shoot one between the eyes as ask him for a light. But the problem was how long the Jarheads had waited before coming to me. I knew I’d do my damnedest to find little Mao; but I also had a pretty strong idea that there wouldn’t be much left of her when I did. Those were the odds when kids got snatched off the streets. If the Jarheads were lucky, I might find their little girl still in one piece, but she’d be cold and grey as the moon.

  Shoe soles applauding my herculean efforts, I descended the eight flights of indoor stairs and threw my weight against the crash bar on the exterior door, meeting a blast of cold, wet air and the sounds of my city at rest—traffic, radios, horns and insults blaring anytime one driver moved a little too slowly for the guy at his six. There was plenty of two-legged traffic, too, despite the bad weather, with dames strutting their stuff and playing coy under their escorts’s umbrellas. I couldn’t help wondering how many of the darlings were getting paid for their coquettish efforts. It was getting so I had a hard time telling the working girls from the ones next door; they all seemed to dress the same—not that I minded it any. I wasn’t one to judge. In this economy, you took whatever work you could get. Too many years fighting a war against a more technologically advanced enemy had left the United World in sorry economic shape. We needed time to recover, lick our wounds. Make a few advancements of our own. And hope the EC would leave us alone while they did the same.

  “Charlie, how’s it hanging?” Mr. Newspaper shouted his customary greeting with a gap-toothed grin.

  “Low and lazy. Until now.” I gave him a wink.

  He guffawed, puffing on his signature pipe and reclining on a tied stack of newspapers. From the looks of the bundles, they’d just been dropped off, but he was in no hurry to get them sorted and ready for his thirteen-year-old minions. For one thing, they were nowhere in sight; and for another, his stand already had plenty of other reading material to choose from. And it was doing a bang-up job shielding him from the storm.

  “How are things in the world?” I tipped my hat back from my brow and stuffed both hands into the pockets of my trench coat, glad I’d remembered to wear it—the sort of thing Wanda always used to nag me about. I was doing all right without her, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. With a steady income from the Jarheads, hiring her back on was a real possibility—after the rent was all paid up.

  “Nothing but wars and rumors of wars, Charlie,” said the old man. “And plenty of shiny photos to take our minds off it all.” He gestured at one of the magazine racks where Russian mafia and Yakuza royalty vied for space. One prominent couple too beautiful for their own good was calling it quits, according to the boldface type and redundant exclamation points.

  “No news then.”

  “You got that right.”

  I tipped the brim of my hat forward so he’d know it was time for business. “How about kids?”

  “How do you mean?” His grin remained half-intact as he held the smoldering pipe.

  “Kidnapping.” I nudged the stack of papers beneath him with my shoe. “Stuff that never shows up in there.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” He shifted on the pile and avoided eye contact. “News is news. And most of it’s bad these days. There ain’t no law in this city anymore, none than counts anyways. The United World’s too busy with international matters to be concerned with the municipal variety. Bad things tend to happen. Law of entropy or something, that’s all this town knows.”

  “A little girl. Taken three nights ago, snatched off the sidewalk from her folks.”

  Mr. Newspaper held up a gnarled hand to stop me there. “Can’t help you, Charlie. You know how things are.”

  I nodded. “Ivan.”

  He blew out a sigh. “They’d shut me down if he knew I was helping you out. He’s got eyes and ears all over town.”

  “So do you. Why do you think I hit you up first whenever I’m working a case?”

  He nodded. “You haven’t had many of those lately.”

  No, I hadn’t—thanks to Ivan. He’d made me the last of a dying breed, due to a strictly enforced lack of demand.

  “Can’t you just point me in the right direction? C’mon, for old time’s sakes.” It’s as close as I’d ever come to begging. Besides, he owed me. I might have saved his frozen ass once in the war, back when we were stationed in St. Petersburg during the dead of winter. He was my commanding officer in those days, a time we’d both worked hard to put far behind us. Unlike Mr. Jarhead, we’d grown out our crew cuts as fast as we could once we returned stateside, and we never reminisced about the glory days. In my experience, war is hell. When you’re drafted to fight, you do your job and you do it good. But the only reliving you do is in the middle of the night, when all the blood and the ear-splitting explosions won’t let you sleep. That’s more than enough, trust me.

  Mr. Newspaper sighed, the creases in his face sagging with dead weight. “Why do you stick around, Charlie? Can’t you see this city’s a lost cause? It’s got no soul to save, and the kicker is, it has no clue it’s already dead!”

  The man sure had a way with words. But I’d always had a thing for the underdog. “Just call me a champion of lost causes.”

  “Like I always do.” His watery eyes met mine. “And a fool. You should get out while the gettin’s good, Charlie. You don’t want to end your life here.”

  “Is that a warning?” This town was ugly, sure, but I wasn’t ready to give up on her. Not as long as I had friends here—as well as folks who needed somebody like me to fill the gap left by those cops on Ivan’s payroll.

  “Take it or leave it.” He popped his pipe between his teeth and grinned again as a couple strolled by arm in arm. “You know, I don’t hear too good these days.” He dug a sausage-sized finger into his bristled ear to prove the point. “What do they call it? Cauliflower or somethi
ng?”

  That was enough for me. I grabbed a copy of a shiny gossip rag and handed him twice the cover price. “Try to stay dry out here.” I stuffed the magazine under my coat and forged out into the rain.

  “You too, Charlie,” Mr. Newspaper called after me. “But it might just be a lost cause!”

  * * *

  The old man had given me just the lead I needed, and so I found myself standing in a partially dry doorway on one side of an alley, shivering as I kept an eye on an unmarked, dimly lit door across the way. That dump was both the residence and business office of one Cauliflower Carl—a heavyweight champ once upon a time, but after a few too many KO’s and not enough in the way of endorsements, he’d turned to an honest living as a bookie. Word was he’d also been dabbling in girls on the side as a way to make ends meet. Times were tough; nobody had to tell me that. But a guy like Carl who capitalized on human weakness was the lowest of the low in my book.

  The sultry sound of clopping high-heels entered the alley from the street. A shadowy form came to the unmarked door, and the dingy lamp glowed down on a drenched dame with a bedraggled stole across her shoulders. Even from twenty yards, I could see she was shivering worse than me.

  She reached up a ghostly hand to knock twice, pause, then rap three times more. A few seconds passed in silence, broken only by the rain flooding the gutters and splattering across the pavement. She doubled over with a thick cough. Then two bolts slid back, and a flicker of blue television light came into view before Carl’s frame blocked the doorway. He cursed at the sight of her and shook his head in obvious disapproval.

  I strained to hear, but the storm picked up at just that moment. Yeah, real considerate. But I could tell by the body language what their animated discussion was all about. It hadn’t been a good night, and the girl had come to explain things, maybe dry off a bit, grab a bite or a fix. Nothing doing. Carl pointed at the street and told her to get back to work. He wasn’t running no charity—that ‘s what he bellowed before slamming the door in her face.